Where those associated with Western films from around the world are laid to rest.

Friday, June 16, 2017

RIP John G. Alvidsen

‘Rocky’ director John G. Avildsen dies at 81

Los
Angeles Times

By Jeffrey Fleishman

June 16, 2017

Oscar-winning director John G. Avildsen, whose “Rocky” sent a shot of
adrenaline through movie theaters and turned Sylvester Stallone into one of
cinema’s most unforgettable boxers, has died at 81.
Avildsen’s eldest son, Anthony, said the filmmaker died of pancreatic cancer
at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

With rousing music and sentimental scripts, Avildsen was a master at ennobling
and lifting the underdog into states of grace. He won best director for “Rocky”
(1976), the tale of Rocky Balboa’s gritty and unlikely transcendence from the
streets of South Philadelphia, and was also
known for “The Karate Kid” (1984), the story of a restless teenager and his
Okinawan martial arts mentor.
But Avildsen was also known for deep and nuanced portraits of characters
caught in the complexities of their times. His “Save the Tiger” (1973), which
won Jack Lemmon an Academy Award for best actor, was the story of a garment
manufacturer who burns down his company for insurance money. In “Joe” (1970),
Peter Boyle starred as a racist factory worker and iconoclast in an exploration
of hippies and murder that touched on the nation’s changing cultures.

In an interview with The Times in 2014, Avildsen recalled his encounter with
Lemmon: “When I came to meet him for the first time I had long hair, an
extensive beard and blue velvet jeans with daisies on my butt. I explained to
him if he chose me to direct the movie, I didn’t want to see him in it. I
didn’t want all the mannerisms, all of the things he had grown comfortable with
over the years. I wanted to see [the character], not him.”

Avildsen explored social ills, unexpected relationships and the friction and
forgiveness that run through life. “Lean on Me” (1989) cast Morgan Freeman as a
New Jersey
school principal trying to help students stay clear of violence and drugs.
“Neighbors” (1981) starred John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd as disparate
middle-aged neighbors in a comedy that captured the insecurities and
eccentricities of suburbia. Critic Roger Ebert called “Neighbors” a “truly
interesting comedy, an offbeat experiment in hallucinatory black humor. It
grows on you.”

But it was his film about a boxer that roused a nation, revived the
well-worn pugilist melodrama and set loose a string of sequels. “Rocky” entered
the consciousness at a time America was shaken by Watergate and the Vietnam War
and was trying to find its way as the radicalism of the 1960s settled into the
uncertain — and at times bland and hero-less — 1970s.
“Rocky” was a hit with audiences but not always with critics. Writing in the
New York Times, Vincent Canby concluded: “Under the none too decisive direction
of [Avildsen], Mr. Stallone is all over ‘Rocky’ to such an extent it begins to
look like a vanity production…. It’s as if Mr. Stallone had studied the careers
of Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola and then set out to copy the wrong
things.”

The Hollywood Reporter in its review credited Avildsen with “extraordinary
insight, and an even more extraordinary feeling for the rhythm and pace of his
film…. ‘Rocky’ is a picture that should make movie history.”

In an interview last year, Avildsen told the Baltimore Sun about his initial misgivings
about “Rocky”: “When this script came to me from an old friend ... I said I had
no interest in boxing, I think boxing’s sort of a dumb thing,” he said. “He
pleaded and pleaded, so I finally read the thing. And on the second or third
page, he’s talking to his turtles, Cuff and Link. I was charmed by it, and I
thought it was an excellent character study and a beautiful love story. And I
said yes.”

Avildsen, who also directed Marlon Brando and George C. Scott in the World
War II thriller “The Formula,” is the subject of a new documentary, “John G.
Avildsen: King of the Underdogs.” That film had its world premiere at the Santa
Barbara International Film Festival this year and is slated for a digital and
home video release in August.

Born in Oak Park, Ill., Avildsen is survived by sons Anthony,
Jonathan and Ashley; and daughter, Bridget.

About Me

Born in Toledo, Ohio in 1946 I have a BA degree in American History from Cal St. Northridge. I've been researching the American West and western films since the early 1980s and visiting filming sites in Spain and the U.S.A. Elected a member of the Spaghetti Western Hall of Fame 2010.